Covid-19, Religion and FoRB: 2020 Vision – Looking Backwards and Seeing the Way Forward. Reflections upon the Completion of the Covid-19 & FoRB Webinar Series

 

Since its launch in April 2020, our Covid-19, Religion and Belief webinar series has offered hundreds of academics, civil society, government, and religious leaders a space to reflect upon some of the consequences of the pandemic and its effects on freedom of religion or belief (FoRB). Using a cross-cutting approach, we looked at the impact of the pandemic at the intersection of religiosity, religious freedom, civil rights, the economy, and humanitarian aid.

The aim of our concluding webinar was to take stock of good practices and lessons learned and try to imagine what the world will look like six months from now. To accomplish this, this episode was slightly different from the others. We wanted this to be truly a participatory exercise. To this end, listeners were invited to respond to the question, ‘How has Covid-19 impacted your region, what you have learned from this experience, and what you will do (or think should be done) moving forward?’

To capture this final webinar, and review the entire series, we have compiled the posts by Brett Scharffs, Pasquale Annicchino, Judd Birdsall, and Marco Ventura.
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Faith-Based Organizations Responding to COVID-19

 

This blog post by Brett G. Scharffs, Director of the International Center for Law and Relgion Studies, and Katherine Marshall, Senior Fellow at Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for  Religion, Peace & World Affairs, overviews a webinar on “COVID-19, Religion and Belief: Contribution of Faith-Based Humanitarian Organizations” held on June 25, 2020. The online discussion was the twelfth in a series of webinars organized by a coalition of organizations: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, European Union Office; BYU International Center for Law and Religion Studies; Cambridge Institute on Religion and International Studies; Bruno Kessler Foundation/CIRIS; University of Siena; and FGV Escola de Direito do Rio de Janeiro.

The COVID-19 crisis is rocking societies, economies, and institutions across the world. That includes religious communities and organizations. On June 25, an online discussion shone the spotlight on humanitarian organizations, as many are driven by faith inspiration and are playing—and are likely to continue playing—vital roles in responding to the vast human needs the crisis exposes.

Simona Cruciani, from the UN Genocide Prevention Office, moderated an exchange that centered on the immensity of the human suffering we see and on the ways in which organizations are shifting rapidly to respond. The discussion was set in the context of broader contemporary debates about religious engagement and religious freedom, offering examples of how principles translate into action on a day-to-day basis. While positive response was the main thread running through the discussion, panelists also expressed concern over hate speech, intergroup tensions and violence, and the deep inequalities that the crisis exposes so brutally. (more…)

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Obergefell v. Hodges: Five Years Later

Supreme Court of the United States ends marriage discrimination – Obergefell vs Hodges. Photo Creator: Ted Eytan

On June 26, 2015 the Supreme Court of the United States issued its momentous opinion in Obergefell v. Hodges.  Only a few SCOTUS decisions have provoked such strong debate over the majority’s arguments and its understanding of human dignity or the nature of judicial power.  In this blog conversation, American and European legal scholars and lawyers reflect on the postmodern understanding of marriage that inspired the decision and on the consequences of Obergefell for promotion of LGBTI-people’s rights, on religious exemptions, on democracy in the United States, on children’s rights, on the European Court of Human Right’s jurisprudence, and on the search for the compromise between religious freedom and anti-discrimination claims. This variety of reflections, both positive and critical, illustrates how the decision has become an important episode in American and global legal and human rights history. (more…)

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